Home Study Update...

So I'm sitting upstairs in the bedroom right now, while David is downstairs with our social worker.  Yep, that's right.  We are right in the midst of our home study! Our social worker came out last night for three hours, and interviewed David and I.  I think it went really good.  We just answered questions about our marriage, our finances, our families, our parenting styles, etc.  All these things were a part of the 51 page profile we each had to fill out, so we sort of expected it all.

It was very low key, and comfortable.  We sat at the table and drank pink lemonade.  I had a little platter of carrots, celery, cucumber, pita chips, tortilla  chips, and hummus to munch on.  Our social worker told me I didn't have to feed her, but it was THREE hours, from 4:30 to 7:30, and I knew my stomach would be growling if I didn't have something to munch on.  I'm glad we had something to eat, and between the three of us, we killed that platter.

Today I had my individual interview with the social worker first.  We talked for an hour and a half, mostly about my family and childhood.  None of the questions were hard, except for one.  She asked me who the most influential person in my life was.  This question isn't really supposed to be difficult, but I knew this was a question from my personal profile (which she compares my answers to) and I could not, for the life of me, remember who I had written down and why.   Which is sort of embarrassing, because if this person is the MOST influential person, you would think they would have had a big enough influence on me that I would think of the same person twice.   So of course I laughed, and told her I knew it was a question on the profile, and I couldn't remember who I had written down.  She laughed too and told me its not a test, and if they don't match, its not a big deal.  I suppose its not a huge problem to have more than one influential person in your life, right?  So I went with my gut, and told her the person that came to my mind right away, and talked it up :)

Now David is downstairs.  I would love to be a fly on the wall and hear what he is saying.  :)  Its fun to think in another hour or so, our part of the home study is done!  Then we just wait for our social worker to write it up, and get it reviewed and we are all set.  Unfortunately for us, the person who reviews our home study at our agency is off for most of the month of June, so that may hold us up a little.  But no worries :)  We are confident God has our child(ren) in mind, and will work out the timing perfectly for us to bring them home.

Coming Up...

The time is coming...

Next weekend we meet with our social worker.  She is coming over on Friday and Saturday for three hours each time.  She is basically just going to be talking with us about our 51 page personal profiles, both together, and separate.

I have been BUSY cleaning the house (although she won't be checking for that... but STILL).  Dave has been a great help too.  I hate to vacuum, so he always offers to do it.  What a good man.  :)  We do still need to purchase our fire extinguishers and create our 'fire escape route' to post strategically before she comes.  We have a busy week ahead of ourselves, but I'm sure there will be plenty of time to stress out and over prepare for questions we've already answered :)

 I am so nervous, which is weird, because she was SO incredibly nice and easy to talk to when I spoke with her on the phone.  I can't wait to have the home study finished, because then we can send it in with our Dossier and get on the wait list!  It feels so close, even though I know there is still a lot of paper work to go.  But we'll just keep moving forward, one step at a time!

What's in a Name?

During his best man speech at our wedding, my brother joked about (among many things) my undying love for Duke Basketball, and how he predicted our first child would be named "Cameron Indoor Stefanich," after the famous building the Blue Devils play in.

Recently, a question that we have been hearing a lot is if we have any names picked out for our child or children (yes, we are hoping to adopt a sibling group consisting of two children between the ages 0-4). This has been a hard question for us to answer because not only do we not know the gender of our children, we also do not know their ages.

You might ask yourself "why does this matter?" It matters because if we adopt a 1 year old and a 3 year old, the 3 year old will already have and be quite attached to their birth name. Changing the name of one or both of our children could add to the losses our child will already feel.

We have read research about changing the name adopted children. There are reasons for and against it. For example, there is research that states changing a child's birth name, especially a child who recognizes their name could have a negative effect on the child. Children may feel like their parent's changed their birth name because it was not good enough for their forever family. A child who thinks this might then think they are not good enough for their forever family.

On the other hand we have read research that states the positive reasons for changing a child's birth name. One reason we continue to read about is that an adopted child needs to feel like they fit in with their forever family, new community and life. If their birth name stands out too much they may not feel like they belong.

Some parents choose to keep their child's birth name. While others choose to use their child's birth name as a middle name. Finally, we have met parents who have created a more "Americanized" hybrid of their child's birth name. There seems to be no right or easy answer.

So to answer the question that started this post, "yes" MacKenzie and I have talked about names for our children. We have fallen in love with some of these names, but we also know our children might already have a name that they love. So when thinking about names we have decided to do what we have often done throughout this process, continue to gather information and try our best to "go with the flow."

Either way it is is safe to say "Michael Jordan Stefanich" and Lebron James Stefanich" are no longer in the running.

- dave

Workbook - Check!

Until you have experienced the "With Eyes Wide Open" workbook, you don't know perseverance.  We have been plugging away at this thing for WEEKS!  And today I can tell  you, with a big smile on my face, WE ARE DONE!  It will be in the mail tomorrow, to be reviewed and returned to us.  And just in time too, as our family education coordinator will be out of the office next month.

As overwhelming and difficult as this book was, here are some highlights of things we learned that will help us in our adoption process!

• Ethiopian children typically do not like dogs - due to the wild hyena population.  We'll want to take our time introducing them to our little pugs!
• Our child may have a hard time sleeping in the silence of our home - they will probably be used to the busy sounds of an orphanage.
• Putting our child's pajamas or a blanket in their bed with them (unwashed - so it smells like their previous home) will bring comfort to our child during their early time at their new home.
• We will need to have a 'cocooning' state when we bring our child home to help with the attachment and bonding period.  This also means that we will need to be the only ones to hold our child for the first three months or so they  are home with us.  This will be tough on our family members, I'm sure!
• We have had to prepare for the strange comments others will make to us and our transracial family.
• One of our best resources will be other adoptive parents, and we have already made connections with so many!

This is just a taste of all that we have learned in the 15+ hours we've put into this book.  But I can honestly say we are happy to be done!

On to the next steps....  

Browsing

So today David and I are in Chicago for Brian's graduation from law school.  (YAY Brian!!)  Of course we had to stop at our favorite store... H & M.  While Dave was looking for some fabulous finds, I found myself in the children's department.  I've shopped there plenty of times for other people, but today I was actually looking for my OWN children!!  It was SO fun.  If I only knew ages and gender, I would have done some serious work in that store!

For some reason though I was mostly drawn to boys clothes at the story.  By the time I got to the girls side, it was time to leave :)  So I didn't get any fantastic pictures of the girls dresses with the bottoms that had ruffles!  Loved it :)  I think you will love these boys clothes though, as much as I did!

This was MY favorite shirt.  I will be buying it whether we have a boy or a girl.  SO stinking cute.

This sweet little child WILL be my sunshine, and I cannot wait to meet them!  It seems so far away, and I am trying to be patient, but what a sweet day that will be!

And are you kidding me with these little shoes?  I cannot WAIT to meet the little toes that will fit into these shoes.  And I know they always fall off, but I will be putting these things on my children for SURE whether they are walking or not :)

And if you know anything about my husband, you know he loves his superheroes.  He is planning on our boys sharing his love for men in tights.  I asked him what he would do if they didn't like superheroes, and he said "that wouldn't happen."  So for David, here is the PERFECT T-shirt.  Although I think Superman is the least liked superhero of Dave's... but it is one of the cutest symbols, so....

And this shirt melted my heart.  I was REALLY sad there wasn't a Mommy shirt, but this will make my husband a proud papa.  Can't wait to see our little guy sporting this cute little shirt.  And what's not to love?  David is going to make an amazing father.  I can't wait to see him with our children, and fall in love with him all over again in a brand new way.

So although I'm not ready to buy children's clothes with all the unknowns about our little one(s), I LOVED looking for them, and imagining them in these cute outfits, and planning for what they might look like.  I can't wait to see their sweet faces and kiss them and put them in cute clothes!

Fire Safety

Today we got a call telling us the name of our social worker.  VERY exciting, but now we have to wait for her to call :)  We are dying to meet her and start the interviews!  We also learned some things we have to do for our interviews - or more for our house - before the social worker comes.  We need smoke alarms in the bedroom.  We already have those, so we are good there.  We also need fire extinguishers in the kitchen and the garage.  We would probably never have done that before, but I am glad we are doing it now.  Fire is scary, and sometimes my cooking is scary too.  Fire extinguishers just might be necessary some day  :)  and the spray nozzle on the sink won't do a grease fire any favors!

We also need to have our fire escape plan written out and posted on the wall.  Just like in my classroom!  At school it is on bright orange paper, with a map and arrows, posted by the door.  The same thing is needed at home.  Our agency social worker said it doesn't have to be anything extreme or fancy, it just needs to be there.  To me it seems like a strange request, because there is no fancy fire safety route.  Just down the stairs and out the door.  Nothing too fancy.  Nobody is climbing out our bedroom window - its three stories up in the back, so no thanks.  And the bedrooms that will belong to our children have the steepest roof known to man outside of them, so that isn't happening either.  I guess its helpful if we have a babysitter though.  They would need to know the quickest way out.

When I was little, we had a very extravagant fire escape route.  It involved crawling out the window on to a roof a mile away (or at least it looked a mile away) and then climbing across our garage roof and jumping down off the roof into our sandbox.  Brilliant.   Pretty sure since my parents slept on the main floor, and us three kids were upstairs, one of us would have fallen off the roof and broken something during that process.  But we had a plan, and I felt safe as a child knowing there was a plan.

So David and I will do the same thing for our children (AND our social worker... )  We will have a plan and we will post it.  Regardless of what that little plan says though, if there ever was a fire at our house, we would run through the hottest, tallest flames to get our children out of there, and on the way down the stairs, I can honestly say I will not be checking the plan on the wall :)

Gojo Ethiopian Cuisine...

As part of our adoption training, our workbook asks us to eat some food that our children may eat on a regular basis, or might be used to.  So that lead us to Gojo Ethiopian Cuisine in Grand Rapids. We invited some friends to join us, and set out to see how our taste buds would handle a little Ethiopian spice.

The restaurant is a very quaint, family owned establishment.  I fell in love with it right away.  It wasn't very busy, but even so they had our table already set, with a "reserved" sign on it.  The walls are lined with pictures of children from Ethiopia that had been adopted by families in the area. The owner, Sam, was incredibly helpful to us, and helped us order.  We all ordered the Ethiopian tea, which was REALLY good.  I am a tea drinker though... so that might have helped with my reaction.

Sam suggested we order some food from the traditional menu.  It comes on a platter like you can see below.  It is served on Injerra, which is sort of a sourdough flatbread.  Each person is also given their own piece of Injerra, which is rolled up like a tortilla.  You can see one on the green plate in the background of this picture.

We had nine people with us, and we ordered 3 plates.  Two of them had spicy beef and spicy chicken, with Ethiopian salad in the middle, lentils, and vegetables.  The plate below was the special.  It had spicy lamb, which was almost everyone's favorite.  It also came with Ethiopian salad, green beans, collard greens, and the white stuff is a spiced yogurt.

You can see in my next picture, I am holding my Injerra.  We were told to tear off a little piece of the Injerra bread, and use it to scoop up the food from the platters.  There were no plates, and no silverware. Everyone ate off the same plates.  It was an incredibly intimate way to eat, and I think it says a lot for Ethiopian people!  This is a very social way to eat as well, and it was fun and different from what we are used to!

I was preparing myself for some really spicy food - which is not usually my number one choice.  But to be honest, I really liked it!  The spicy food wasn't "burn your mouth" spicy, but really very flavorful.   It was spicier than I cook, but it didn't taste "hot", but just spicy.  The veggies were all prepared differently than I am used to, but I really enjoyed eating in a new way, with the Injerra, and plan on going back many times!  I can't wait to take my parents, and brothers and sisters there.

The last picture is what one of our platters looked like when we were done.  You can tear the Injerra on the bottom of the plate and eat that as well.  We definitely had more than enough to eat. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, even if the food wasn't what they were used to.   I hope to become a regular at Gojo's!

Gettin' Our Learn On...

So every day this week we have been working hard, hard, hard on our adoption education :)  We have been going between our "Eyes Wide Open" workbook, and our online classes.  This is Dave working hard to navigate through the pages on one of our online classes.  Of COURSE I was fully engaged in the learning as well, but I needed to stop to savor the moment. 

The great part is we will be done with our education this week!  One step closer to the wait list.  The beauty of all this education, is that it truly getting David and I to consider some incredibly important topics that we may not have thought to discuss on our own.  It has also put us through scenarios where we have to know how to respond to comments people make towards us or our children.  It has been really enlightening for us to be able to learn and talk about our life once we are parents!

One Step at a Time

Today was another big day for us.  We sent in our Home Study paperwork to our social worker!  This has been hanging over us since we got our adoption planner. This was the first big item to get checked off our list.  Next our Social worker will come to our house for some interviews :)  Should be very fun!

We also received our FBI results!  This is a HUGE deal to us, because we were warned this could take a long time.  It had been taking some couples up to 13 weeks, so we were afraid this could really hold us up.  Lucky for us, it only took us about 2 weeks to get our results back. Hooray!

Early Mother's Day

Yes, that is right.  Tonight I got my first Mother's Day gifts!!  Even though I am not OFFICIALLY a mom yet...  Our child or children could be alive right now waiting for us!  

Mom and Dad Stefanich came into Holland to watch some more fabulous Dutch Dancing by yours truly.  Afterwards we went to dinner and I was surprised with two AWESOME gifts.   The first is a shirt that we saw online when we first started talking about adoption.  The Stefanich's are quite internet savvy, AND they love T-shirts, so this was a fan favorite.  

Here I am with my new T-shirt on - and a close up so you can read it :)  The shirt is SO ridiculously cute I cannot even help myself.  I on the other hand, NOT so much.  Dutch Dance doesn't do much for hairstyles :)  

HOW Cute is this?!?!

The second gift was this beautiful necklace.  The other day when we ran into that little stand with the Ethiopian coffee, they also had these necklaces.   They are hand made by women in Ethiopia.  All the proceeds from the necklaces go straight to them.  This necklace is SO beautiful, and its so fantastic to think that it was created in the country where my future children were born.  

Its so excited to think that possibly by next Mother's Day, I'll have a beautiful child to celebrate with.  Motherhood is an amazing feeling.  I haven't even met my children yet, and already I am blessed by their lives.  I'm blessed by my thoughts of them, and my dreams for their future.  I know that whatever I can imagine them to be, they will surpass my dreams.  

Study Time...

We have been SO busy keeping up with all our paperwork so far.  It seems like all we do lately is work on our adoption education.  Dave has us on a plan, so we don't let this fall by the wayside.  Every day when I come home from work, there is Dave, at the table waiting for me :)  As part of our adoption process we are required to complete this workbook (With Eyes Wide Open) and some online courses in preparation.  If you know the song With Arms Wide Open by Creed, then you can imagine my husband singing this song, replacing the words with "With Eyes Wide Open."  Its an INCREDIBLY entertaining way to get our study sessions started :)  The training is tedious, but it gets us to talk about a lot of things we may not have known to talk about otherwise.

For example... Did you know that children in Ethiopia are often very frightened of dogs?  Yep.  They have hyenas in Ethiopia, which are probably pretty scary.  Now obviously hyenas look nothing like two cute little pugs, but it is definitely something we need to consider when bringing our child(ren) home to Penny and Ellie.  

So we just keep plugging away :)  Lots of discussion and writing, but with everything we learn, we are becoming better parents for our future children.  Its exciting to think about putting all these conversations into action once our kids are here!

Feeling the Love...

Today was a day filled with love for our child that we haven't met yet :)  Every day is, because we think about this little one (or ones) constantly.   But today was especially fun.  Today we got a chance to see how others that we love are thinking about our children as well!  

It started at Dutch Dance this morning.  For those of you not from Holland, Michigan, you may have no idea how intense Tulip Time Festival can be.  It involves TONS of people coming to Holland to Tip Toe through the Tulips and watch people in authentic Dutch Costumes dance to some pretty inspirational music.   Enter:  Me.  I am a Dutch Dancer.  Changing the lives of tourists everywhere.

My Dutch Dance partner is my best friend since middle school - Alisha.  She is an amazing mother who I can only HOPE to compare to someday.  She is also a pretty incredible friend, who is loving on our children even before she has met them :)  Today she brought me 2 books.  A name book, and a book about what to expect in your child's first year.  She was also the first one to bring David and I a "Hooray, you are going to be parents!" gift.  She brought us an INCREDIBLE book by Mem Fox, Whoever You Are, which made me cry in Starbucks, and two bibs - more for Mommy and Daddy than baby. SO cute!!   I am so lucky to have her as my friend :)  

Davids parents came to watch Dutch Dance as well, and as we were speed walking to find some breakfast afterwards, David and his father flagged me and his mother down.   There was this super cute little booth that was selling Ethiopian coffee!   We ended up talking with the man selling the coffee and found out he had also adopted children from Ethiopia.  He was selling the coffee, and some beautiful jewelry in partnership with an adoption agency in the area.  All the profits went directly to Ethiopia, and feeding people/mothers/orphans that live in Addis Ababa.  The jewelry was hand made by a woman's co-op, and again, all the profits went back to them.  The coffee is also sold at The Good Earth downtown Holland, and DeBoer Bakery on the North side.   David's mom bought us some, and I'm excited to try it tomorrow morning!  It smells AMAZING.  And what an amazing experience to talk to this man!  He said he had no words to describe his experience in Africa when we went to take home his children.  I was tearing up just listening to him!  It was such a cool little thing to come upon in Holland.

When we finally arrived at our destination for breakfast, there was a wait.  While Mom Stefanich and I waited in line for food, Dave and his Dad went into Gazelle Sports.  Of COURSE Dave's Dad had to buy prizes for David and I.  We both got RED laces - profits go to support fighting Aids in Africa.  I will proudly wear these on my shoes!  

Today was filled with a million reminders of our children and their incredible continent and country.  Its so incredible to be supported so much by our family and friends.  Its so great to know that as excited as we are to meet our children and get to know them, our family and friends feel the same way.

Sharing the Joy

So we've starting telling more people, including our co-workers.  David sent a very nice email to his co-workers.  I on the other hand... made a cake.  An Africa cake.

I have wanted to make this cake since we decided to adopt from Ethiopia - which has been quite awhile.  I've dreamed of making this cake, and having my family over for dinner. Then I would share our great adoption news by unveiling my amazing cake, and it would be great.

But David had very little faith in my baking/cake carving abilities, and he talked me out of it, time and time again.  But now my time has come.  I am sharing the news with my co-workers, and I get to decide how to do it.   And obviously... I chose this cake. This amazing Africa cake.

Even as the cake was baking, I asked David if he thought I would be able to pull it off.  No was his reply.  Emotionless, and lackluster.  Just plain NO.  Oh ye of little faith.  But I was determined, and began carving away with a photo of Africa next to it.

As sure as he was that my cake would turn out weird and mis-shapen, he was DEFINITELY excited about the left over pieces he would be tackling later.

And then there it was.  Beautiful Africa.

With a heart on Ethiopia :)  Or at least where Ethiopia would be on my slightly "not drawn to scale" Africa.

I paired it with this lovely mock up of the American Express commercial we all know and love....

I'm so excited to bring it to school and see what they think about both my FANTASTIC cake AND our amazing news :)

Sharing our news has been SUCH a fun process.  Its so great to be able to share our excitement with all the important people in our lives.  We are so lucky to have so many amazing, and supportive people in our lives.  Thanks to everyone for being so amazing, and for sharing in our journey with us!

The Paper Chase...

We received our Adoption planner, Home Study binder, and Dossier in the mail last week! Tomorrow we have our Dossier run through phone call. That should give us a little more information on how to begin working on the 2 huge binders we received. We've started a couple things that we know take awhile. One of those things is our FBI background check. That can take some time, so we are sending that in as soon as we can.

Today we shared our great news with some of our family members at my Grandma and Grandpa Sluiter's house. A couple of my aunts, uncles, and cousins were there in addition to my grandparents. It was an amazing experience because after telling them the news, they surrounded us and prayed for us and the newest Stefanich we haven't even met yet!

As we begin to share our news with family and friends, it is wonderful to hear the love and support they have to offer us. I can't wait to introduce our child to the incredible people we have in our lives already. Thanks to everyone for your prayers, love and support as we continue on this amazing adoption journey!

Moving Forward...

I just got off the phone with our agency, and once again we are moving forward! Now that all our contracts have been signed and notarized, we are "officially" starting our journey with the agency. This week we will be getting our dossier, adoption planner, and home study binder in the mail. Next week Monday (the 19th) we have a phone call scheduled to go over our dossier. We also expect to be hearing from our social worker this week to get our home study process started. Once we get the paper work, we can start the LONG process of filling it all out! Our first step will be our FBI background check. We have been told that can take a long time, so it will be the first thing we do. Can't wait to keep moving forward!

Orientation

So its spring break, and David and I are in Florida. We had our orientation call with Tiffany today. It was scheduled for 12:00 so we hung out at the beach for an hour, and then sat in the condo and waited for her call.

She called at noon on the dot, and we went through all our contract information, and other important paperwork. Once again, the second we got of the phone, we decided to get the paperwork signed and sent in. Really, the signing was easy, but most of the paperwork needed to be notarized. To be exact, 13 signature pages needed to be notarized.

We called FedEx, which had a notary. They would only charge us a small fee of $10.50 per signature. $136.50! Unreal. So I did some google research and found out banks do it, often for free if its your bank. So we drove 30 minutes to the nearest 5th 3rd bank and got our 13 signatures notarized. For free. She never asked if we banked there. So we basically could have gone to any bank. Oh well. We had 30 minutes each way to talk about how exciting the process is :)

Then... of course... we overnighted the documents once again. They'll get it tomorrow. Can't WAIT to hear back from AGCI and move forward once again!

Our next step is the HUGE paper chase that is our Home Study and Dossier. We have been told that is approximately a 4 month process.

Each step we take brings us closer to our little one, and that makes the process so much more exciting! We learned today that at our first trip to Ethiopia (for the court date) we can possibly meet our child's biological mother or care giver. It depends on whether or not they show up to the court date - which we hope they do, because if not, then the process is delayed. I think it would be so wonderful to see who our child comes from, and to learn about their background, family history, health, or anything else we can learn from them! (That is IF we could even talk with them - I have no idea how that process would go, or if somebody could translate for us, or anything. ) But even just seeing them will be wonderful for us!

Stay tuned! We hope to hear back from AGCI soon!

Our Application

We spent FOREVER on our application, making sure everything was just perfect, and making sure we weren't missing any important information. The second we were done filling it out, we decided we needed to send it out immediately. We still needed to get a photograph of ourselves and our house for the application. We had 15 minutes to get to walgreens, AND to Kinkos before it closed to make a copy of everything (thats the anal side of me) and FedEx it. We could have waited until the morning, but we were WAY too excited!

We flew to Walgreens. The picture of the two of us got chopped a little weird, and the top of Dave's hair was cut off. That didn't stop us :) We made it to Kinkos, copied our pages, and sent it on its way. (Overnighted, of course.)

I'm confident the girl at Kinkos thought I was ridiculous when I asked her to take our picture with our mail, but I didn't care. We probably looked like two kids at Christmas. We were SO happy and excited :)

And then, the very day we knew AGCI would be getting our application, they called! Hooray! Our application had been accepted. Dave and I celebrated with a little bubbly in our wedding champagne glasses. Can't wait for the rest of the process to unfold!

We're Adopting!

David and I have started the adoption process through an amazing agency called All Gods Children International. We are SO excited to start this journey! Our adoption application has been accepted, and we will be going through our orientation on Monday, the 6th! Check out our agency's website at http://www.allgodschildren.org/

Why Adoption and Why Now?
Since before David and I got married, we always discussed that adoption would be a part of our family plan. We both agreed that at some point we wanted to adopt. Then one night I had a dream that I brought home a baby from Haiti after the Earthquakes. I mentioned my dream to David, and somehow God used this to get us both thinking about adoption. We both felt really strongly that we needed to adopt before trying to have a biological child. The more we talked about it, the more we realized our child may already be waiting for us. Why would we leave our child in an orphanage until later, when we were ready for them now? So that is what we are doing! Adopting first may not be the most conventional way to start a family for a couple who hasn't even attempted to get pregnant, but we both feel so strongly that this is God's plan for us and our family.

Why Ethiopia?
David and I made the decision to adopt internationally. When we first looked at adopting, we realized there are so many families trying to adopt domestically. These waiting parents are so important to the children in our country, but we felt drawn to children outside of the United States. Many countries do not have the large amount of families that want to adopt like we do in the United States. We decided to adopt from Ethiopia for a number of reasons. One reason was that met Ethiopia's adoption requirements. Some other countries required adoptive parents to be older, or married longer than we have. Another reason was that we watched a video of AGCI's orphanage in Ethiopia. You can watch the video of the orphanage, Hannah's Hope, on AGCI's website. This video was a really big deal for us. The first time I watched it, I was crying. I showed it to Dave, and at that point we pretty much knew we wanted to adopt from Ethiopia. We feel so great about the orphanage, and it gives us such a comforting feeling to know where our child will be cared for until we can come and get them. That pretty much sealed the deal for us in deciding upon Ethiopia.

The whole process will probably take anywhere from 12 to 18 months, and we will have to travel to Ethiopia twice before we can take our child home. Its a long process, but we hope to keep you as updated as we can on this blog! Come back and visit often! I'll update as often as we have more information :)

Coming Soon...

Check back soon to find out what we are up to!